On December 16, 1974, Ann Arbor concluded its year-long sesquicentennial celebration with a performance of "This Is The Town That Was" at Hill Auditorium, presented here online for the first time. This historical musical, written by Ann Arbor teachers Dianne Baker and Carol Duffy, was performed by Ann Arbor Public Schools students from Abbot, Angell, Newport, and Pittsfield Elementary Schools and Forsythe Junior High School.

True crime lovers, this is for you.

History of Washtenaw County, Michigan, published back in 1881, includes CHAPTER IX, DARK DEEDS. This summary of Ann Arbor’s earliest murders is fairly gruesome and disturbing. If gruesome and disturbing murder is your thing, grab your favorite snack and click the above link to read at your leisure. For more creepy details, local author James Mann revisited some of these crimes in his 2010 book Wicked Washtenaw County: Strange Tales of the Grisly and Unexplained. Both of these books discuss our city's first recorded killer, how he escaped his punishment, and disappeared. However, the digitization of old Ann Arbor newspapers offered up the whereabouts of our missing murderer. Let me update you on The Death Of Patrick Dunn.

Ann Arbor’s first murder was a feature story in The Ann Arbor Observer's January 1987 edition. (Disclaimer: This was the first documented murder in Ann Arbor’s history. Was it really the first murder? Maybe? Probably?) There are lots of sordid details, including the victim himself dramatically yelling, "MURDER!", and you can read all about it if you're curious.